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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is insisting that a strategy of containment would not work to stop Iran's nuclear program and is calling for the United States to impose "red lines" that could lead to military action.

"Iran is guided by a leadership with an unbelievable fanaticism," the prime minister told NBC's David Gregory in an interview that aired on Sunday. "You want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?"

"I mean I heard some people suggest, David -- I actually read this in the American press -- they said, 'Well, you know, if you take action, that's a lot worse than having Iran with nuclear weapons,'" he said of a potential military strike. "Some have even said that Iran with nuclear weapons would stabilize the Middle East, stabilize the Middle East."

"I think the people who say this have set a new standard for human stupidity."

While Netanyahu has called for action soon rather than later, President Barack Obama has said that his "red line" was a nuclear-armed Iran.

The president told Telemundo on Wednesday that he had "stated repeatedly, publicly, that red line - and that is we're not going to accept Iran having a nuclear weapon."

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During what could be the final Republican debate of the 2012 presidential primary season, Mitt Romney decided to double down on his prior statement that Iran will attain a nuclear weapon if President Obama is re-elected. More fearmongering straight out of the Johnson playbook from back in 1964.

Romney: Iran Will Get Nukes If Obama Is Re-Elected:

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney doubled down on his claim that a second Obama term will bring a nuclear Iran.

"We must not allow Iran to have nuclear weapon. If they do, the world changes. America will be at risk. And some day nuclear weaponry will be used. If I'm President, that will not happen. If we re-elect Barack Obama, it will happen," he said at the CNN Republican debate on Wednesday night.

Rick Santorum was right there with Romney but we happily got some push back from Rep. Ron Paul who reminded the audience that somehow we've managed to negotiate with countries that were much more of a threat than a country surrounded by our military bases that has yet to attain a single weapon.

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From the "Jesus candidate" Rick Santorum at this Sunday's NBC-Facebook debate. Santorum apparently thinks that it's perfectly acceptable for a nuclear armed United States to become a theocracy, but if it's the Iranians, well, that's a reason to go to war with them.

How very unChristian like of him. How many countries would Jesus bomb Rick?

GREGORY: Senator Santorum, I want to ask you about Iran. It's been a big issue in the course of this campaign so far. I wonder why it is, if America has lived with a nuclear Soviet Union, we have come to live with a nuclear North Korea, why is it that we cannot live with a nuclear Iran? And if we can't, are you prepared to take the country to war to disarm that country?

SANTORUM: They're, they're a theocracy. They're a theocracy that has deeply embedded beliefs that the, the afterlife is better than this life. President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said the principal virtue of the Islamic Republic of Iran is martyrdom. So when your principal virtue is to die for your--for Allah, then it's not a deterrent to have a nuclear threat if they would use a nuclear weapon. It is, in fact, an encouragement for them to use their nuclear weapon, and that's why there's a difference between the Soviet Union and China and others and Iran.

GREGORY: What about Pakistan? They are in indifferent ally at best, they have nuclear weapons. Are you also prepared as president to say they must disarm or else?

SANTORUM: They are not a theocracy. And we're very hopeful of, of maintaining a more secular state than, than is in place today. But there is a serious threat, and this administration has bungled it about as badly as they can in trying to continue those positive relationships. We've had some real serious problems with the, with the Pakistani military. Obviously, with respect to Osama bin Laden, with respect to North Waziristan, but you have a--the reason is we have a president that's just very weak in, in that region of the world and is not respected...

GREGORY: All right.

SANTORUM: ...and, therefore, he's not, he's not been able to have that strong hand in working with Pakistan that they're used to.

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So much for being the party that's "pro-life." On this week's Meet the Press, after some hedging and trying to change the subject after being asked what he would do differently than the current administration of whom he's been very critical of, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that he would order airstrikes on Iran in order to keep them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Here's the end of the back and forth where Gregory finally pinned him down:

GREGORY: But I asked you about disarming Iran. There is no material difference in terms of how the Bush administration sought to disarm Iran and what the Obama administration has done.

SANTORUM: There's a material difference in, in this respect. Number one, the Bush administration worked with me in passing the Iran Freedom Support Act, which I authored, which imposed tough sanctions on the Iranian nuclear program and provided funding for the prodemocracy movement. When President Obama came into office, he cut that funding. President Obama did not provide funding into Iran to help those folks who wanted to overthrow this democracy. And when the time came to support them, he chose not to. That is a substantive difference between my policy, which I was a leader on in the Senate, and what President Bush tried to do when he was president.

GREGORY: The reality is, there is no good option to disarm Iran.

SANTORUM: Yes, there is.

GREGORY: The Bush administration knew that, this administration knows that. Tell me what you would do differently, then.

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GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul got the neocons up in arms again with his statements during this Thursday night's GOP primary debate on Fox News when he told one of the moderators, Bret Baier, why he thought all the hyping of Iran's potential nuclear threat was so dangerous.

The LA Times summed up this segment of the debate quite nicely -- Ron Paul: Strike against Iran would risk a repeat of 'useless' Iraq war:

Ron Paul did it again. The libertarian-minded Republican separated himself from the pack of candidates at tonight's debate by urging restraint in response to a possible Iranian nuclear threat, saying the U.S. can ill afford a repeat of its now-concluded war in Iraq.

Paul said there was "no U.N. evidence" that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program, calling claims to the contrary "war propaganda."

"To me the greatest danger is that we will have a president that will overreact, and we will soon bomb Iran," he said. "We ought to really sit back and think, not jump the gun and believe that we are going to be attacked. That's how we got into that useless war in Iraq and lost so much."

Paul said it "makes more sense" to directly engage with Iran diplomatically. And he even praised President Obama for "wisely backing off on sanctions" against Iran, which he called overreaching.

"We have 12,000 diplomats in our services. We ought to use a little bit of diplomacy once in a while."

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says nuclear weapons in the Middle East is a "good thing" -- as long as Israel is the only country that has them.

An intrepid young reporter cornered the candidate at a restaurant in Iowa Friday and asked him about his call to assassinate scientists from Iran and other foreign countries.

"If they come from foreign countries, they will be seen as enemy combatants," Santorum explained.

"Would you like to see a nuclear free Middle East?" the reporter pressed.

"No!" Santorum exclaimed. "I think Israel having a nuclear weapon is a good thing. Even though Israel has never said they have one, it is widely believed that they do have one."

"But I think that's part of the problem why these other regimes [in the Middle East] want to have one," the reporter noted.

"No, it's not," Santorum disagreed. "No one believes Israel is going to attack any Arab country. I mean, it would be suicide to do so. ... That's not why Iran is developing a nuclear weapon. It's not for defensive purposes."

In 1967, Israel launched a surprise attack on the Egyptian Air Force, starting the the "Six Day War." Israel has always said the preemptive attack was defensive in nature.

The former Pennsylvania senator went on to opine that Palestinians did not deserve their own country for the same reason that the U.S. should not "give Texas back to Mexico."

"Bottom line is that is legitimately Israeli country," he insisted. "All the people that live in the West Bank are Israelis. They are not Palestinians. There is no Palestinian. This is Israeli land."

The reporter challenged Santorum's assertions by noting that the Palestinians are not accorded the same rights as Israeli citizens.

"They cannot use the same roads. They have to go through checkpoints. So, do you think they should have the same rights [as Israelis]?" he wondered.

"The people of Israel have passed laws based on the conduct of the people there," Santorum replied. "That's an unfortunate situation. I wish it wasn't occurring. It's one that was brought on by the people and the activity that they conducted."

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Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann explained her support for waterboarding Monday by likening it to the decision to drop nuclear bombs on Japan during World War II.

At Saturday's CBS News/National Journal Republican presidential debate, Bachmann agreed with Herman Cain that waterboarding was an acceptable interrogation technique.

"If I were president, I would be willing to use waterboarding," the Minnesota Republican declared. "It was very effective. It gained information for our country."

Over the weekend at a summit with Asian leaders in Hawaii, President Barack Obama said his rivals were wrong.

"Waterboarding is torture," the president insisted. "It’s contrary to America’s traditions. It’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we operate. We don’t need it in order to prosecute the war on terrorism. And we did the right thing by ending that practice."

On Monday, Fox News host Martha MacCallum asked Bachmann to respond to the president's remarks.

"I think the president is clearly wrong," the candidate said. "I would go back to president Harry Truman who had to make the horrific decision about dropping an atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II. He said if he had to kill Japanese in order to save one American life, he would."

"If as president of the United States, I believed that we would be able to save 3,000 American lives and stop jet aircraft from flying into the twin towers, I would utilize waterboarding if it would save American lives. Sometimes decisions have to be made."

She concluded: "It is important for people to know no one died from the use of waterboarding. Is it uncomfortable? Yes, it's uncomfortable, but our worries should not be the about the comfort level of a terrorist."

Following the end of World War II, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East executed Japanese soldiers who participated in the waterboarding of U.S. soldiers.

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From CBS' Face the Nation, if it's Sunday, it seems it has to include either Sen. Lindsey Graham and/or one or more of his fearmongering cohorts, John McCain and Joe Lieberman to come on the air and rattle the sabers for war with Iran. This week it was Graham predicting "armageddon" if heaven forbid Iran is allowed to attain a nuclear weapon.

SCHIEFFER: Lindsey Graham, I want you to listen to this because something else that got a lot of attention last night was Iran, and what to do about its nuclear capability. And we saw Mitt Romney who is one of the Republican front-runners say, "If push came to shove and nothing else worked, we'd have to take military action against Iran." Listen to what he said here.

ROMNEY: And if all else fails, if after all of the work we've done, there's nothing else we can do besides mil-- take military action, then of course you take military action. It is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

SCHIEFFER: Okay, Senator Graham, does that mean that we might get in a war with-- with Iran over whether it is-- that would be required to take out their nuclear capability? Would you be for that?

GRAHAM: Totally. Absolutely without any doubt, the Iranians if they develop a nuclear weapon, Bob, the whole region is going to want a nuclear weapon, then you march down the road of armageddon. You open Pandora's Box if you attack Iran. If they get a nuclear weapon, you empty Pandora's Box. That's the world we live in. So I support the idea of a military option at the last resort. But now their capability is so redundant, you'd have to do more than go after the nuclear program. You have to neuter this regime, destroy the air force, sink their navy, go after the revolutionary guard and try to get to people in the country to overthrow the regime. We need a regime change. If they get a nuclear weapon, the world is going to go into darkness.

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If there's one thing you can count on from a Republican primary debate when the subject is foreign policy, it's that there will be lots of drum beating for the United States to go to war with Iran. This Saturday night's debate on CBS was no exception with Newt Gingrich going so far as to say we should be assassinating their scientists if that's what it would take to prevent their nuclear program from moving forward.

Gingrich wasn't the first Republican to call for assassinating scientists, since we heard the same sort of rhetoric from his fellow GOP primary challenger, Rick Santorum last month as Dave wrote about here -- Santorum: Dead Foreign Scientists a 'Wonderful Thing'.

GARRETT: Mr. Speaker, is this the right way to look at this question, war or not war? Or do you see other options diplomatically, or other non-war means that the United States has at its possession to deal with Iran that it has not employed?

GINGRICH: Well, let me start and say that both the answers you just got are superior to the current administration. You know, there are a number of ways to be smart about Iran and there are also a few ways to be dumb, and the administration has skipped all the ways to be smart.

GARRETT: Could you tell us the smart ways?

GINGRICH: Sure. First of all, maximum covert operations to block and disrupt the Iranian program, including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems, all of it covertly, all of it deniable. Second, maximum coordination with the Israelis in a way which allows them to maximize their impact in Iran. Third, absolute strategic program comparable to what President Reagan, Pope John Paul II and a Margaret Thatcher did to the Soviet Union of every possible aspect short of war of breaking the regime and bringing it down.

And I agree entirely with Gov. Romney, if in the end despite all of those things, if the dictatorship persists, you have to take whatever steps are necessary to break its capacity to have a nuclear weapon.

Compare and contrast Newt's statements to a segment that aired that same morning on Chris Hayes' show on MSNBC, where former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman talked about the fact that the recent report coming from the U.N. which stated that Iran is moving forward with its nuclear program smells of the same sort of false statements and highly questionable intelligence that we were being fed in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

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An attack on Iran isn't the worst possible outcome from Tehran's desire to have nuclear weapons, according to a former CIA director appointed by George W. Bush.

Gen. Michael Hayden told CNN's Candy Crowley Sunday that an attack on Iran now "seems inexorable."

"In my personal thinking -- and I need to emphasize that -- I have begun to consider that may not be the worst of the possible outcomes," he said.